Hierarchical Silk-Based Textile Sensor: Recent Advances in Multidimensional Processing and Multiscenario Applications

With the growth of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), flexible sensors have been widely used in health monitoring, human-computer interaction, soft robotics, smart homes, and energy harvesting owing to their light weight, sensitivity, and stretchability. Unlike impermeable films and hydrogel materials, silk fibers/textiles have been considered the ideal sensing materials due to their excellent mechanical flexibility, biocompatibility, biodegradability, sustainability, and ease of processing. The current review mainly focuses on the mesoscopic doping research of silk fibroin materials and their applications in the medical field. However, no review systematically summarizes the preparation, processing, and multifunctional applications of silk-based textile sensors. In this review, it provides a comprehensive and timely overview of flexible silk-based textile sensors, including multilevel structural and multidimensional sustainability of silk, multiple processing strategies, and multiscenario applications. The silk hierarchical structure is discussed well with their excellent performance, and then the detailing merits and drawbacks of each spinning technique are discussed. Further, this review provides a summary of the emerging applications and future challenges in flexible silk-based textile sensors. This review aims to provide an insightful viewpoint on the fascinating silk-based textile sensors.